


invasion of the body snatchers

by tripletmoons



Series: invasion of the body snatchers [1]
Category: DCU (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics), Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: (?), Dimension Travel, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 09:21:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14787794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tripletmoons/pseuds/tripletmoons
Summary: It’s a bit like waking up after the worst drinking binge of his life. Awareness comes complete with a full body ache, the mother of all migraines, and a shitty taste in his mouth. The only difference is that when he asks himself 'what did I do last night' he doesn’t come up blank. Instead, fifteen odd years of memories hits him like a pistol whip.Fifteen years of being a different Roy Harper.Shit, he hates mindfuckery.





	invasion of the body snatchers

It’s a bit like waking up after the worst drinking binge of his life. Awareness comes complete with a full body ache, the mother of all migraines, and a shitty taste in his mouth. The only difference is that when he asks himself _what did I do last night_ he doesn’t come up blank. Instead, fifteen odd years of memories hits him like a pistol whip.

Fifteen _years_ of being a different Roy Harper.

Shit, he hates mindfuckery.

 After basking in the shit that is his life – _lives ?_ – for a while, he blinks his eyes open. Pain, once a-fucking-gain, lances through his brain, blurring everything. Once the light exposure becomes bearable, his surroundings sharpen into focus: an IV stand and medical equipment, a tiled ceiling, a wall of windows, a single door plastered with Doctor puns. In the background, a machine beats with his pulse, slowly amping up.

A _hospital_. What fool took him to a hospital? (A hospital cannot treat mindfuckery! He needs a Martian or a Sorcerer or- _not a hospital!_ A hospital cannot pull foreign memories from his head! _)_

He tries to drag himself up but his body feels strange, lopsided and off. He reaches out for the bars on the sides of his hospital bed and it feels- _feels wrong_. His hand misses, nails clattering against metal.

 _Hand_. Singular.

He twitches his head to the side. His arm – his right arm – is sawed off and wrapped up just bellow the elbow. A clean amputation site leading to a bicep, too thin and wiry and tattoo-less to be _his_ bicep. His body – not _his_ body – stretches out before him, horrifying in its familiar unfamiliarity. 

The machine picks up in the background - _beepbeepbeepbeep_ \- and maybe he’s having a heart attack. 

The door to his left bursts open and in rushes Oliver _fucking_ Queen and _him._ He looks at his most hated person and his doppelganger and proceeds to have a panic attack.

They have to hold him down so the nurse can syringe him. 

**\-- >**

Roy silently listens to Oliver **_fucking_** Queen speak of the eight years this body – _his body ?_ \- spent on ice. Distantly, he absorbs the info: alien invasions, sidekick team ups, Roy Harper 2.0. Honestly, nothing shocking about any of that. 

He’s still a little bit occupied with freaking out about being a _bodysnatcher_ with _one arm._

When Oliver _fuck-him_ Queen finishes up his spiel, everything is silent.

Roy doesn’t know how to react. He wants to jab Queen with an IV and maybe punch him a little (a _lot_ ). He figures he could probably get a few hits in; it’s been a day since he woke up and he’s settled into this body with eerie ease (and he’ll have the element of surprise). Beyond that, he definitely wants to get roaring drunk (he wants a drink so bad it hurts), but that’s – no, that’s just no. (He won’t.)

He doesn’t know how O.G. fifteen year old Roy Harper would react to this. He has the memories but they’re not _his_ – there’s no emotion in them, no sharpness - it's like a datadump. He does know O.G. Roy wouldn’t punch his kinda-dad in the face or down the nearest bottle of booze though.

“Roy?” Queen entreats. 

Roy very pointedly turns to other-Roy. “What the fuck is happening?”

“What?”

 _Did I dimensionally travel? Did I reincarnate badly? Did I jump this body or did this body jump me?_ “Where is my arm?” He ends up saying. (The safe option. Anyone would ask that question in his position.)

“Well,” other-Roy says uneasily, dropping into the chair by his bedside, “we wanted to wait until you were strong enough, but I guess the moment’s here.”

Roy pointedly waves his amputated arm – _fuck_ he _cannot_ be a one-armed archer, _fuck. “_ I don’t think this arm is going to be any better in a different _moment_. Get on with it.”

“What’s the last thing you remember before we found you in Tibet?”

Roy doesn’t remember being _found_ in Tibet but what the fuck ever. He knows what other-Roy is alluding to, has this body’s memories, recalls the last mission the kid ran with startling clarity: a bright gem in a pool of foggy jewels.

“Roy- _I_ was investigating a LexCorp shell company suspected of selling weapons to North Relayshia. Some LexCorp goons got a drop on me. They knocked him- _me_ out.”

“That’s right.” Queen says, moseying up to his side and radiating solemnity. God, Roy hates him. “They grabbed you.” He grabs his neck as if in example, massaging the meat of it. “Thing is Roy, that was eight years ago.”

Clearly this is supposed to be a shocking revelation. However, a kid spending eight years on ice is nothing compared to a dimensional brain transplant. “Uh- _what?”_ He offers.

“Lex Luthor and the Light, this criminal organization he works with, they abducted you.” Other-Roy looks gutted by this. “They amputated your arm and took your eye.”

“My _eye_.” His right arm itches, an aborted handclap to the face. “The _fuck_ is wrong with my _eye_?”

“Well, it’s green.”

“Yeah?” Roy asks. _And?_

“Roy,” Queen says slowly, looking concerned in his peripheral vision, “your eyes –eye is blue.”

“I know _that_.” Roy snips, even though he did not know that. (Heterochromia, _really_?) “Is there anything else wrong with it?”

“The doctors took scans. It came back normal. It’s just an eye.”

“But green?”

“Yeah. “ Other-Roy says, gaze sliding to the side. His face could be found in the dictionary next to the world _guilt._

Roy eyes other-Roy: an aged up mirror image of his current self. The guilt makes sense, even if it is misplaced. Clones, like children, don’t ask to be made. “They copied you from it, huh.” 

Other-Roy looks a bit like he’s been mule kicked in the teeth. “Yeah. They – uh – they needed an endless supply of your DNA to perfect their human cloning process.”

“Well,” Roy says, flashing a strained grin, “it’s hard to perfect perfection, but you do look good.”

Other-Roy doesn’t seem to know what to do that. Oliver looks similarly poleaxed. ( _Good.)_

“Yeah, they- they grew me. Or rather, force grew me. In a matter of months I looked your age. They programmed me with all your memories and skills and,” his face twists (ohh shit, _trauma_ ), “worse.”

Queen moves closer, sitting down on his other side of the hospital bed. Roy still doesn’t look at him. “Then they spoon fed me clues to your location. I thought I was doing detective work but in hindsight.” He rubs his neck again and then reaches out, beseeching, entreating, and looking for understanding. “You’d been missing for three months. I’d been going crazy so when I found you- _him_ I didn’t question the good fortune. I had no idea Luthor had stored you on ice all this time.”

Roy stays silent; mind racing, plans forming.

He doesn’t really care that other-Roy has been living original-Roy’s life. He’s in original-Roy’s _body_ , which is maybe worse. What he does care about is that this situation is exploitable. There’s an expectation of anger here that he can work with. (He needs to break with these Arrow’s.)

“So, what you’re saying is,” he turns to the clone with the appropriate dramatics, “you took hi- my place. You’ve been living my life for _eight years_.”

Other-Roy looks down. Roy kinda feels like he’s just kicked a puppy but manfully keeps his face stern.

“And he’s been tirelessly searching for you for you for five of those years.” Queen assures.

Roy turns to him for the first time, meeting his eyes squarely. There is nothing faked about his expression now. Real hate. Real anger. Real betrayal. “Huh, but not you. _You_ gave up on me.”

Other-Roy stands up abruptly, chair clattering. His hands are out like _don’t shoot._ “I don’t want to be the cause of more conflict between you two.” His gaze drops, droopy and sad. “I’d understand if you never wanted to lay eyes on me again.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you didn’t do anything wrong. Clones don’t ask to be created. Plus, you found me. I don’t blame _you.”_

He turns his gaze forebodingly back on Queen, who flinches. It is very satisfying.

 -->

 After Queen and other-Roy retreat Roy breaks out from the hospital, slipping through the window like a wet seal.

His not-memories prove their use when he instinctively hones in on Green Arrow’s nearest storage, which is a mere two blocks away. (Which is nice because he has only one arm and is wearing a hospital gown. People are _staring._ ) All he has to do to get in is flash his eyes at the scanner. (Apparently one baby blue is enough? Basic-bitch security at it’s finest.) The brick wall unfolds, opening up to reveal Arrow’s bolthole.

“Welcome, Red Arrow.” The automated system chirps at him.

“ _Red Arrow_.” He chirps back, snickering. For a man programmed with the memories of a boy so dead set on establishing himself apart from Queen, other-Roy chose a real derivative name.

Against the left wall of the warehouse, a long row of cubbies holds gear and clothes and money. He grabs a black bag from one of the shelves and takes every last cent, any tech that looks interesting/useful, and a disassembled _rocket launcher._ (God bless.) He sets a grenade aside for later and zips everything else into the bag until the seams strain.

After a moment of futilely comparing his body to the full size adult tac gear, Roy turns to the Speedy uniform, pinching the yellow hat between his fingers. He knows the get-up from his not-memories but still – what an embarrassing outfit. An animated Robin Hood threw up all over the design and it shows. Boy, does it show.

Still, it’s better than a hospital gown.

He puts on everything but the cap, resolving to buy a proper baseball hat as soon as possible. (He also resolves to ensure his Luthor-plan pans out because putting on pants with a single hand is a trial he doesn’t fancy repeating.)

Domino mask affixed, he lugs the bag over his shoulder. He doesn’t bother with the bow he can’t currently use and instead grabs the grenade he set aside. All packed up, he heads to the Zeta Beam.

Other-Roy didn’t know anything about the Zeta Beam technology aside from how to use it. Roy hops inside the chamber and makes one last resolution: to strip a Zeta Tube down and figure it out by the end of the month. 

“Destination: Metropolis.” He orders, priming the grenade with a click and dropping it to the floor.

The Zeta tech lights up yellow around him, air charging with power. Oliver Queen and other-Roy to come barreling in just as the energy reaches it’s peak. He salutes them and is gone.

(One little explosion won’t put them off for long, but Roy doesn’t need long.)

**\-- >**

One of the constants in both memory sets is LexCorp’s success in the prosthesis market. According to O.G. Roy’s memories, LexCorp was working with veterans eight years ago to create a functional prosthesis. Before O.G. Roy was iced, they’d moved to human trials. Nowadays they’ve got to be at least functional.

(They better be. He needs two working arms pronto– he can always build himself a better right hand later but to do that he needs _two fucking arms._ )

Roy can’t hack LexCorp to retrieve the info he needs; he can’t type fast enough like this to do something like that. He can, however, aim a rocket launcher with only one arm. So, blowing shit up it is. (And how sad is it that weapons manufacturers cater better to disabilities than computer companies?)

He lines up the shot, narrowing in on the Big Bad himself and pulls the trigger, moving back with the recoil. The rocket flies true, blowing the glass of Luthor’s corporate penthouse outwards in a fiery explosion. He doesn’t for a second believe he killed Luthor (which is good because if Luthor dies, he will posthumously fuck up the economy – he monologue’d all about it once in Roy’s world and he can’t be that different here). All Roy wants is a consultation.

He clumsily disarms the bazooka and retrieves a grapple gun, firing it into the ledge of the building. It digs in deep, shattering cement, and Roy throws himself into the open air, steadily discharging the cable to drop him to the ground.

LexCorp’s subterranean parking lot is shamefully easy to break into.

His lopsided parkour carries him past security within moments. After that, he spends a minute sprinting around to all the conventional entrances, attaching micro-explosives and sensors to the doorways. Once that is said and done, he jumps up to one of the industrial vents and tosses his duffel into it, leaving him with just his belt and side bag. He drops back down to the floor and rolls a remote explosive under the most expensive car in the joint. Then he waits.

It doesn’t take long.

A stern faced woman with visible fighter’s poise (bodyguard) hustles Luthor through the door. Luthor unlocks his car with a beep, which Roy uses to disguise the _click_ of an explosive arming. (As soon as he has a workshop he will make quieter bombs.) Luthor is just a few feet away when car explodes, tossing him and his lady knight back.

“Lex, _so_ sorry about all the fiery destruction.” Roy smiles a knife smile, walking easily through the smoke like a _badass_. “But you’re booked clear through December and I needed a consultation a bit sooner than that.” 

“Mr. Harper.” Luthor brushes himself off with a sardonic grin. Despite experiencing two near-explosive experiences within ten minutes, he looks ready to begin a board meeting. “It is so nice to see you again.” 

“The feeling is not mutual.” Roy says, coking his gun. “Tell your bodyguard to disarm.” ( _Ha_ , dis _arm_ )

“Mercy?” Luthor questions, helping his guard to her feet. “She carries no weapon.” The woman’s stance widens and Roy is moving on instinct before she thrusts her palm out, hand disassembling to reveal an ion cannon. The shot misses, barely, and Roy’s shifts his gun from Luthor to the immediate threat. “She _is_ a weapon.”

This is how Roy ends up chasing an android around a parking garage at 1:00 AM.

The fight is more like a game of explosive tag than a fight. Mercy the Android is pretty impressive in a lot of ways: steam-lined, adaptive, strong, and capable of shooting shit with her arm. ¼ of Roy’s brain is cataloging ways to make her more effective, ¼ of his brain is drooling over her arm, and the rest of him focuses on blowing her to smithereens. He does pretty well on that front, considering he’s fighting with one fucking arm.

After a couple cat and mouse experiences, he moves in for close combat, ducking around her arcing strikes to wrap a length of detonation rope around her arm. He jumps backwards under a kick and detonates the cord, blowing Mercy backwards into the hood of a car. Her arm lands a couple of feet away and Roy tracks the location for retrieval, already darting towards Luthor.

Lex receives the same treatment as Mercy, a detonator cord strangling his right arm.

Not a moment later Roy’s wrist alarm beeps, signaling movement near his perimeter sensors. Roy slaps his wrist against his face, detonating the micro explosives with a click. (It’s an undignified way to blow someone up, but again, _he only has one arm._  and his fingers are occupied with the cord detonator. _)_ Muffled screams flood the parking lot as Luthor’s security force runs face first into rubble and heat-death.

Luthor’s habitually smug face wipes clean, an expressionless canvas. Roy grins. He knows the look of a man put off his game. 

“That rope around your arm… That’s detonation cord Luthor, the kind LexCorp sells illegally. I’ve got some questions for you and I’d like you to answer them honestly, unless you want me to follow Hammurabi’s code: an arm for an arm.”

 “Questions?” Luthor asks, something uneasy in his face now. Roy's not acting like anticipated.

“Yeah, about your company’s prosthesis work, specifically.”

Luthor’s expression eases, not quite relief but something like the look of a cat landing on it’s feet. “Well that’s ironic.”

“I am a fan of irony.” Roy jibes, nodding at Luthor's bound right arm.

“Yes, well. You see, ever since you vacated that cozy little freezer unit we provided for you in Tibet, I’ve expected this confrontation. So,” Luthor plants his foot on his briefcase, kicking it roughly towards Roy, “I came prepared.”

 Roy kneels down, keeping a careful finger over the explosive cord detonator. Based on Luthor’s unconcerned handling of the briefcase, it’s not armed with hair trigger explosive traps. Roy jostles the case experimentally, listening for any telling movement. _Nothing_. He’ll just have to trust it. (And make himself a scanner for the future. GA’s gear is kinda shitty.)

Slowly, he clicks open the case. Nothing goes off. He props it open and stares, laughter building in his gut. There, nestled in foam, is a gleaming black arm, weaponized and O.G. Roy’s goddam size. It’s a bit bulky and overt looking, power devices literally _glowing,_ but it’s better than anything he expected. Luthor always did like bargaining chips.

“Irony indeed.” Roy chuckles, getting to his feet, the case tucked under his good arm. “Well, this was surprisingly easy.”

Luthor’s eyebrow spikes. “Surprising is a good descriptor for this encounter.”

Roy grins, walking backwards towards Mercy’s arm, finger still on the trigger. He nudges his foot under the mechanical limb and kicks it upwards, clumsily wrapping it in the cord of his side bag.

“It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, Lex.” He says, jumping up onto the nearest car. “I’ll be leaving now. I’ve planted a few timed explosives round this place as a thank you for seeing me despite your busy schedule. It’ll be a fun Easter hunt for your security force.” (He, of course, is bluffing, but he’s pretty sure he surprised Luthor several times tonight and the guy will take his threat seriously.) 

“I’m sure they’ll enjoy your gift.”

Roy leaps up into the vents and drops one last armed explosive. “Yeah I’m sure they will.”

**\-- >**

He fieldstrips the arms in a condemned apartment complex, searching for monitoring devices and trackers. He is pleasantly surprised when he comes up empty. Honestly, Lex made everything _so_ simple for him! 

His next step is robbing Goodwill. It’s the easiest step in his escape-the-Arrows plan and honestly not even a low point in his life ( _lives?_ ). It takes about a three minuets to nab what he wants: a pair of weird smelling sweatpants, a red hoodie, sunglasses and a ball-cap. The perfect outfit to steal a car in. (He looks and smells both homeless and desperate. It’s the sunglasses at night that _really_ sells it.)

The car boosting takes a bit longer than the clothes stealing. He doesn’t want to steal a car that will immediately be reported and traceable, nor does he want to steal anything within spitting distance of a camera.

The Arrows are most certainty after him and a one-armed teenage car thief is conspicuous. (He’s minimizing his trail at every turn.)

It’s 3 AM when he drives out of Metropolis in a chop shop Toyota, windows down and music blaring.

He steals five more cars before he rolls into L.A.

(He doesn’t stop at a single bar along the way. He lets himself feel a bit proud about it, especially since his adrenalin crash left him _aching._ )

 --> 

Roy almost cries when he sees his Warehouse. It has the same bones here as it did back home: single leveled, brick walled and absolutely covered with early 2000’s graffiti. Seeing it is like falling in love all over again but better because a warehouse can be bombed, but it can’t break up with you.

Roy parks his car in some overgrown bushes and curls up for a nap in the back seat, cuddling his unattached arms (both android and prosthesis) and gun close.

Tomorrow, he’ll get to work setting up shop. All other plans and considerations are issues for future-Roy.

Present-Roy sleeps.

**Author's Note:**

> I def glossed over a lot of the actual fighting between Arsenal and Mercy the Android, but if you want to see that then watch it on youtube and subtract the rager and teenage angst. (Roy is a hot mess, but he isn't an angsty teenager.)


End file.
